Project C04
Phonetic indices of syllabic organization: The crucial role of variability
PI(s): Prof. Dr. Adamantios Gafos
This project considers variability deriving from two sources, the articulatory motor system and language-particular linguistic structure. In the first funding period, we assessed if and how much of the observed variability derives from one or the other source and developed an approach that harnesses this variability to diagnose syllabic organization from the speech signal. The present project expands the empirical terrain of our studies, addresses a key related methodological issue which has remained stagnant for the last 25 years, and pursues the perceptual consequences of variability in the articulatory patterns established in our previous work in the first funding phase.
in Phase 1:
Interval-based indices of syllabic structure: The crucial role of variability
PI(s): Prof. Dr. Adamantios Gafos
This project considers sources of variability in speech deriving from two domains: the motor system and language-particular linguistic structure. In our empirical domain of interest, phonological and specifically syllabic organization, we wish to assess what aspects (and how much) of the observed variability derives from one or the other source. Dancing offers an apt metaphor: some properties of any given dance must be due to properties of the motor system governing limb movements; others must be due to the culture-specific mode of dancing. A set of results that have been demonstrated in our phase 1 is as follows.
Syllabic organization is expressed in terms of relational properties among phonetic parameters, rather than in terms of some privileged parameter or ranges of values of individual parameters as has been assumed in prior work. This thesis has been developed on the basis of electromagnetic articulometry studies of German and Spanish syllable structure. In these studies, we have shown, first, that there are cases where the fixed parameters hypothesized in prior work to be indicative of syllabic organization fail to show the expected pattern, and, second, that different syllabic organizations exhibit different relations among phonetic parameters.
We argued in Phase 1 that variability is absolutely crucial in the diagnosis of phonological organization (syllabic structure) because it is only when individual parameters (are allowed to) vary that their relations can be discerned in the data. We have demonstrated this by our electromagnetic articulometry studies on German and specifically by showing that the presence of prosodic modifications in a sequence of segments (over which syllabic organization is assessed) enables a better diagnosis of syllabic organization. In contrast to prior work which has not always found evidence for syllabic organization in speech production data, we have shown that clear evidence for complex onset organization can be found in both German (and Spanish) syllable onsets when this relational perspective among phonetic parameters is pursued.
Finally, we investigated the validity of the two most well-known laws in movement science, Fitts’ law and the speed curvature law, in speech movements or repetitive syllables (of German and English talkers), under a much wider range of speech rate conditions than has been pursued in previous work. Using improved methods for extracting the relevant variables from the speech movement data, we have found stronger evidence for these laws than has been assumed so far. We have also begun to explore the dynamical organization underlying the control of speech movements in repetitive syllables, with results indicating that the control regime for the same sequence of phonemes may not be unique across speakers and rates.
Members
Papers
| Author(s) | Title | Year | Published in | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kuberski, S.R., & Gafos, A.I. | The speed-curvature power law in tongue movements of repetitive speech. | 2019 | PLOS ONE, 14(3), e0213851. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213851 | |
| Gibson, M., Sotiropoulou, S., Tobin, S., & Gafos, A. I. | Temporal Aspects of Word Initial Single Consonants and Consonants in Clusters in Spanish. | 2019 | Phonetica, 76(6), 448–478. DOI: 10.1159/000501508 | |
| Tobin, S., Gibson, M., Sotiropoulou, S., & Gafos, A. I. | Articulatory Coordination in L2-Speakers of Spanish. | 2019 | In S. Calhoun, P. Escudero, M. Tabain, & P. Warren (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 3353-3357). Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc. | |
| Bürki, A., Viebahn, M., & Gafos, A. I. | Plasticity and transfer in the sound system: exposure to syllables in production or perception changes their subsequent production. | 2020 | Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 35(10), 1371-1393. DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2020.1782445 | |
| Gafos, A. I., & van Lieshout, P. | Editorial: Models and Theories of Speech Production. | 2020 | Frontiers in Psychology, 11. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01238 | |
| Gafos, A. I., Roeser, J., Sotiropoulou, S., Hoole, P., & Zeroual, C. | Structure in mind, structure in vocal tract. | 2020 | Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, Volume 38, pages 43–75. DOI: 10.1007/s11049-019-09445-y | |
| Sotiropoulou, S., Gibson, M., & Gafos, A. | Global organization in Spanish onsets. | 2020 | Journal of Phonetics, 82, 100995. DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2020.100995 | |
| Kuberski, S.R., & Gafos, A.I. | Fitts’ law in tongue movements of repetitive speech. | 2021 | Phonetica, 78(1), 3-27. DOI: 10.1159/000501644 | |
| Roon, K. D., Hoole, P., Zeroual, C., Du, S., & Gafos, A. I. | Stiffness and articulatory overlap in Moroccan Arabic consonant clusters. | 2021 | Laboratory Phonology, 12(1), 8. DOI: 10.5334/labphon.272 | |
| Lialiou, M., Sotiropoulou, S., & Gafos, A. I. | Spatiotemporal coordination in word-medial stop-lateral and s-stop clusters of American English. | 2021 | Phonetica, 78(5-6), 385-433. DOI: 10.1515/phon-2021-2010 | |
| Sotiropoulou, S., & Gafos, A. I. | Phonetic indices of syllabic organization in German stop-lateral clusters. | 2022 | Laboratory Phonology, 13(1), 1-42 DOI: 10.16995/labphon.6440 | |
| Du, S., & Gafos, A. I. | Articulatory overlap as a function of stiffness in German, English and Spanish word-initial stop-lateral clusters. | 2023 | Laboratory Phonology. Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, 14(1). DOI: 10.16995/labphon.7965 | |
| Du, S., Kuberski, S. R., & Gafos, A. I. | How measures of gestural overlap relate to dynamics: evidence from German and English word-initial stop-lateral clusters. | 2023 | In R. Skarnitzl & J. Volín (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (Vol. 8. Laboratory Phonology, pp. 2169-2173). Guarant International. | |
| Kuberski, S. R., & Gafos, A. I. | Assessing kinematic relations with high speech rate resolution data. | 2023 | In R. Skarnitzl & J. Volín (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 962-966). Guarant International. | |
| Kuberski, S. R., & Gafos, A.I. | How thresholding in segmentation affects the regression performance of the linear model. | 2023 | JASA Express Letters, 3(9), 095202. DOI: 10.1121/10.0020815 | |
| Du, S., Dutta, I., & Gafos, A. | Articulatory timing in Hindi CV sequences. | 2024 | Proceedings of the 13th International Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP 2024) (pp. 77-80), Autrans, France. 13-17 May. DOI: 10.21437/issp.2024-15 | |
| Du, S., Kuberski, S. R., & Gafos, A. I. | Towards a dynamical account of inter-segmental coordination. | 2025 | Journal of Phonetics, 109, 101392. DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2025.101392 | |
| Kuberski, S. R. | Fundamental motor laws and dynamics of speech. | 2019 | PhD Thesis. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam. DOI: 10.25932/publishup-43771 | |
| Sotiropoulou, S. | Pleiotropy of phonetic indices in the expression of syllabic organization. | 2018 | PhD Thesis. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam. DOI: 10.25932/publishup-54639 | |
| Gafos, A. | Stems in Arabic morphology and phonology. | 2017 | E. Benmamoun & R. Bassiouney (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics (pp. 62-86). London: Routledge. | |
| Gibson, M., Sotiropoulou, S., Tobin, S., & Gafos, A. | On some temporal properties of Spanish consonant-liquid and consonant rhotic clusters. | 2018 | M. Belz, C. Mooshammer, S. Fuchs, S. Jannedy, O. Rasskazova, & M. Żygis (Eds.), Proceedings of the Conference on Phonetics & Phonology in German-speaking Countries (P&P13) (pp. 73-76). Berlin: Humoldt-Universität zu Berlin. DOI: 10.18452/18805 | |
| Williams, D., Escudero, P., & Gafos, A. | Spectral change and duration as cues in Australian English listeners' front vowel categorization. | 2018 | The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 144(3), EL215 (2018). DOI: 10.1121/1.5055019 | |
| Williams, D., Escudero, P., & Gafos, A. | Perceptual Sensitivity to Spectral Change in Australian English Close Front Vowels: An Electroencephalographic Investigation. | 2018 | Proceedings of Interspeech 2018 (pp.1442-1446). Hyderabad, India. DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2018-2505 |
